90 CONSERVATOR OF SURGEONS’ MUSEUM [ch. iy. 
over the then existing wall of separation between 
the past and the present of all scientific systems. 
Indeed, notwithstanding his views as to species 
indicated in the above quotations, and his orthodox 
religious creed, there are passages in his Manual of 
Botany , published three years after his first volume 
of British Birds , which appear to show that his 
views had been undergoing a change, as in that 
work he says : “ There is nothing absolutely certain 
as to species,’' that “ species often pass into each 
other by gradations which render it impossible to 
draw a line of demarcation, and thus all species 
are more or less arbitrary; ” while in his geological 
teaching he had quite abandoned those views as to 
creation which so hampered Hugh Miller to the 
last, and led to his fanciful theory of interpretation 
of the first chapter of Genesis. In the epitome of 
his lectures as dictated to his class in Marischal 
College, he says: “ Species have not changed 
during historical times,” apparently implying that 
they may have changed during longer prehistoric 
periods; and, again, in that epitome he says, “the 
most perfected animals appear to have been 
created last,” thus assuming that there had been 
successive creations—not one only, once for all. 
He was absolutely free from prejudice, always kept 
his eyes open, and constantly insisted on ascer¬ 
tained fact as the only legitimate basis of theory; 
while his love of truth and strict adherence to it 
formed, it may be said, the backbone of his life and 
of his work. He was eminently worthy of the 
